Leaf attributes in the seasonally dry tropics: a comparison of four habitats in northern Australia

By L. Prior, Derek Eamus, D. Bowman. 2003

132 citations recorded by the source corpus.

1. Patterns of leaf attributes were compared at regional and global scales in relation to the seasonal availability of water. 2. Light-saturated assimilation rate (Amass), leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf density, thickness, life span, saturated water content, chlorophyll, nitrogen and phosphorus content were determined during the wet season for 21 tree species in four contrasting habitats in northern Australia. Rainfall in this area is extremely seasonal. 3. Amass and foliar chlorophyll, N and P contents were positively correlated with each other, and were all negatively correlated with LMA, leaf thickness, density and life span. 4. Deciduous species had smaller LMA and leaf life span, and larger foliar N and P contents than did evergreen species. 5. The eight Myrtaceous species had smaller A mass, foliar chlorophyll, N and P contents, and larger LMA, leaf thickness and leaf life span than did the non-Myrtaceous species. 6. Leaves from the closed canopy dry monsoon forest had significantly larger A mass, chlorophyll and P contents than did leaves from the three open canopy habitats (eucalypt open forest, mixed woodland and Melaleuca swamp). This reflected the relatively low proportions of evergreen and Myrtaceous species in the dry monsoon forest. There were also significant intraspecific differences among habitats. 7. Leaf thickness, density and LMA were lower than predicted from globally derived relationships with temperature and precipitation. Tropical seasonally dry biomes are under-represented in such global analyses.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3bf803add02e11a6dfbb96fa8c779fc7a90b597

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. M. Westoby
2. I. Wright
3. Daniel S. Falster
4. D. Bowman
5. L. Prior
6. Peter Vesk
7. M. Pickup
8. M. Navas

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. M. Westoby
2. I. Wright
3. Daniel S. Falster
4. Peter Vesk
5. Eric Garnier
6. M. Navas
7. M. Pickup
8. D. Bowman

In Plant Science

1. Peter Vesk
2. M. Westoby
3. Daniel S. Falster
4. M. Navas
5. Eric Garnier
6. I. Wright
7. D. Bowman
8. J. S. Singh

Citations in the corpus

• Cross‐species patterns in the coordination between leaf and stem traits, and their implications for plant hydraulics (2006, background): “…studied by Ackerly (2004), more generally, it seems not to be: elsewhere, A area and leaf size have either been positively correlated or have shown no relationship (Hogan et al. 1995, Ackerly and Reich 1999, Reich et al. 1999, Wright et al. 2001, Prior et al. 2003, Cavender-Bares et al. 2004).”
• Photosynthetic physiology of eucalypts along a sub-continental rainfall gradient in northern Australia (2011, result): “Leaf N concentrations in the leaves that we sampled were low compared to the range of values typically observed in angiosperm trees (Reich and Oleksyn, 2004), but similar to observations for other eucalypts (Bell and Williams, 1997; Prior et al., 2003; Schulze et al., 1998).”
• Tree growth rates in north Australian savanna habitats: seasonal patterns and correlations with leaf attributes (2004, background): “Stem growth was confined to the wet season despite the fact that rapid photosynthesis by evergreen and semi-deciduous trees occurs well into the dry season (Prior et al. 1997a; Eamus et. al.”
• A trait-based approach to comparative functional plant ecology: concepts, methods and applications for agroecology. A review (2012, background): “…RGR than SLA at the whole-plant level (Poorter and Garnier 2007), while the comparison of three data sets where SLA, LDMC and LLS are available (Ryser and Urbas 2000; Wright 2001; Prior et al. 2003; Navas et al. 2010) shows a looser relationship between LDMC and LLS than between SLA and LLS (Fig.”
• Leaf attributes and tree growth in a tropical dry forest (2011, background): “Correlations between leaf attributes have been reported (Reich et al. 1992, 1999; Prior et al. 2003), and trait relationships have been explained in terms of trade-offs between leaf structural and metabolic functions (Reich et al.”
• Why do evergreen trees dominate the Australian seasonal tropics (2005, background): “However, these deciduous eucalypts have leaf properties such as LMA and average lifespan (Prior et al. 2003) and xylem anatomy (S.”
• Sprouting ability across diverse disturbances and vegetation types worldwide (2004, background): “The question of whether functional variation across species should best be represented as a continuum or as categories is of interest for many traits other than sprouting (e.g. Prior et al. 2003; Ackerly 2004).”